LD 2594 
1890 
Copy 1 



IP% 



The University of Kansas. 



C ommencement Addr esses. 



feP^ 



McCook, Snow, deed. 




A 



THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS. 



ADDRESSES, 



OONCEBNING 



The Chancellorship, 
The University, 

Higher Education. 



COMMENCEMENT : JUNE;il890. 

liAWKEISrCE, KANSAS. 



TOPEKA: 

KANSAS PUBLISHING HOUSE: C.C.BAKER, STATE PRINTER. 

1890. 



V 



^ 



PREFACE. 

The Regents of the Kaasas State University beg leave to 
present in this form three Commencement addresses which 
they believe will be particularly interesting and instructive 
at this time to the people of Kansas, and to all readers out- 
side of Kansas who are concerned in the work which the 
State is doing through her chief educational institution at 
Lawrence. The inauguration of Chancellor Snow on Wed- 
nesday, June 11th, 1890, occasioned his address and that 
introducing him by Charles S. Gleed on behalf of the Re- 
gents. The address by Col. John J. McCook, of New York 
City, was made as the annual University oration, in Uni- 
versity Hall, June 10th, 1890. The addresses by Chancel- 
lor Snow and Regent Gleed relate directly to the University 
and its newly-chosen chief executive, while the address by 
Col. McCook is recommended to all readers as a powerful 
appeal for higher education, made by one of the foremost busi- 
ness and professional men in the United States. The Regents 
respectfully urge for these three addresses the most careful 
attention of every thoughtful Kansan. 



Introductory Address for the Board 
of Regents. 



CHARLES S. GLEED, 



Mere ceremony is not tolerated as it once was. 
Formality is an outcast. Time has grown scarce, 
and those who wait begrudge the moments of 
their detention. Pleadings at law are directed to 
be "clear and concise,^' and inaugurations and 
graduations, if ostentatious and vain -glorious, are 
derided. A parade without good purpose is 
child's play or worse. 

The present ceremony has a purpose. The 
Regents of the University have chosen Francis 
Huntington Snow as chief executive of the insti- 
tution, to succeed ex- Chancellor Lippincott. The 
choice has been made, the tender has been ac- 
cepted. With nothing further said or done the 
new chief could go on with his new work. But 
the Regents, mindful that this is an institution 
of the people, for the people and by the people, 
have determined to make known, in this simple 
way, something of their convictions as to the in- 
stitution and its chief executive, and to give that 

(5) 



6 

chief executive an opportunity, not particularly 
to unroll liis own personal or official program, 
but rather to outline so much of his theory and 
knowledge of university work, here and else- 
where, as will best secure him the needed co- 
operation of all the people of Kansas. 

And before all else should be spoken some 
words of commendation. 

To ex- Chancellor Lippincott is due the grati- 
tude of Kansas for six years of the most devoted 
attention to the interests of the University. His 
patience, his impersonal zeal, his genial courtesy, 
his unflagging industry, combined to make his 
administration one of peace and prosperity. 
Under him new men of rare merit were added 
to the faculty, and new buildings and large gains 
in other ways were made. In his varied experi- 
ence have been solved many problems for those 
who are to come after him, and while the his- 
tory of the University of Kansas is read his 
name will suggest faithfulness and kindness and 
success. 

Again, deep gratitude is due to Mr. Spangler, 
whose \dgilance and skill have so thoroughly 
bridged the administrative chasm between Chan- 
cellor Lippincott and his successor. No other 
man outside the faculty could have done so well. 
All the trying features of the situation were met 
with courage and dignity, and no mistakes were 
made. For this faithful service Mr. Spangler has 



the tlianks of his associates of the Board of Re- 
gents, and, I am sure, of all concerned. 

Again, to Professor James H. Canfield are due 
compliments and congratulations of an unusual 
sort. The embarrassments of his position were 
many, but they were nobly met. He neither lost 
his head at the flood of kind things said of him, 
nor his temper at the things not so kind. For 
his serenity, his dignity, and his many direct 
helps — such as his early nomination and steady 
support of the man finally chosen — the members 
of the Board of .Regents and all friends of the 
University will never cease to be grateful. 

And lastly, to the people of Kansas who waited 
patiently, considerately, kindly for the Board to 
choose a Chancellor, every member of it is under 
the greatest obligation. 

When Chancellor Lippincott resigned, every 
member of the Board felt almost jealously fear- 
ful that an error would be made in the choice of 
his successor. From the first every possible ob- 
jection to every possible man was kept constantly 
in view. So dreaded were all these objections 
that no two members were often found of the 
same opinion. Objections that to one seemed 
great to another seemed small. But at no time 
was there a disposition to select by other than a 
unanimous vote, and never was there the slightest 
danger of an improper selection being made. No 



8 

man was ever seriously considered who would not 
liave given tlie place as mucli as tlie place could 
give him. In tliis tlie Regents were a unit from 
the first. They may have been slow, never slov- 
enly. They may have been timid, never trifling. 
They may have been visionary, never vicious. 
They regretted that the advocates of every 
worthy candidate could not be gratified. They 
regretted every unhappy word or deed, and they 
sympathized deeply with every embarrassment 
which came to any friend of the University, near 
or remote. So painfully keen were these feelings 
that a straight course could scarcely have been 
kept but for the closest adherence to the ideas 
that the University, as a whole, is more and of 
more worth than any individual in or near it; 
that nothing should be sacrificed, either in the 
personal and professional worth of the man 
chosen or in the general harmony, inside and 
out, which is necessary for the health and use- 
fulness of the institution; that mere precedent, or 
policy, or faction, or personality, or temporary 
consideration of any sort should not govern. 
Thus adhering, thus persevering, they came at 
last into the good graces of Francis Huntington 
Snow. 

In the battered old book containing the first 
University records may be seen this entry, of date 
July 19th, 1866: "Prof. F. H. Snow was nomi- 



9 

nated for the chair of mathematics and the nat- 
ural sciences, and receiving a majority of the votes 
was declared elected." 

On the 1st day of September, 1866, Prof. Snow 
began his work for Kansas — a work which he 
has to this hour pursued with perpetual motion 
and no back tracks. He has since received from 
Kansas neither a smaller annual salary than his 
first few hundred dollars, nor a much larger 
one. For this magnificent pecuniary reward he 
has given Kansas a quarter of a century of per- 
sonal service, has secured for her a natural his- 
tory collection easily marketable for, say, four 
times what the State has ever paid him as 
salary, with interest counted, and has, besides, 
brought to Kansas from far-away Massachusetts, 
through his generous friend, William B. Spooner, 
a magnificent donation of upw^ards of a quarter 
of a million dollars. Something might also be 
said of his own personal sacrifices, financially, for 
the University's benefit; but true charity neither 
vaunteth itself nor likes to be vaunted. 

In the outset, he was required to know every- 
thing about all branches of science, to get his own 
books, and to provide the museums and apparatus 
for his scientific work; and the way he did this 
challenges the records of Csesar, Napoleon, and 
Grant. Had the signal -service bureau of Noah's 
time announced the deluge, Noah could not have 
been more popular in the animal kingdom than 



10 

Chaucellor Snow lias been. Every form of ani- 
mate and inanimate tiling: lias got into liis ark 
with marvelous haste. He has been the most 
magnetic of men. The Leviathan has come up at 
the end of his line as docile as a cow. Into his 
presence the ambulatory measure-worm has kinked 
itself most willingly. He has conjured up snakes 
innumerable without the aid of prohibited liquors, 
and he has coaxed all the birds of the air to get 
their tails salted in his shop. Even the thought- 
less and unreasoning petrifactions of ages long 
dead have aroused themselves to the demands of 
fashion, and have joined the procession towards 
Snow Hall. 

And Snow Hall ! Few people know how it 
came into being. Only those know who stood by 
the man for whom it was named among the State's 
law-makers, and saw him win the votes of men 
who knew nothing;; of his sciences or his learn- 
ings, but who did know that they were elected 
on platforms calling for the most rigid economy. 
One after another those bronzed and work-worn 
law-makers saw things through the perfect lenses 
of the little scholar's eyes and cast their ballots 
right ; and at least one hand feels to this day the 
vise-like grip of joy and triumph which the lit- 
tle scholar gave it when the last necessary vote 
had been recorded. And — mark this — the joy 
behind his grip was not that Snow had won, but 
that Kansas for herself had done the right thing. 



11 

The victory whicli lie won from Ms fellow-citi- 
zens of tlie Legislature was not a victory of in- 
trigue, or conspiracy, or questionable acuteness of 
any sort, but ratlier one of honest archery with 
the bow of truth and a quiver full of facts. 
Such are all his victories. 

Honest work has characterized every step of his 
progress. Year in and year out he has remitted 
nothing. His vacations have brought only change 
of work, and his recreations have been times of 
learning. And yet he is in no sense a man made 
dull by '-all work and no play." Not one who 
has ever heard him sing the songs of his college 
davs, not one who has ever seen him under the 
spell of fine music, not one who has ever ex- 
changed smiles with him over things bright and 
situations amusing, will ever accuse him of hav- 
ing worked his mind to dullness. 

Allusion has been made to Chancellor Snow as 
a "little scholar." This means that he is small 
of stature. For some purposes this is a disad- 
vantage. Large men challenge attention and get 
on in the world with fewer brains than small 
men. Said ex -Justice Kingman of a portly can- 
didate for office: "He is physically the most in- 
tellectual man in Kansas." Chancellor Snow is 
not thus fortunate, and yet he is a fine example 
of perhaps the most effective sort of physical 
strength. Giants are too often of soft metal 
which soon fails, or else are prodigal of their 



12 

strengtli and by mere wantonness exhaust it. Tlie 
nerve-strong men who in the beginning are put 
under bonds to conserve what strength they have 
are the men who most often stay through the 
race and Avin it. This country has produced a 
wonderful lot of men strong in this way — Jay 
Gould, Samuel J. Tilden, Stephen A. Douglas, 
Thaddeus Stevens, and thousands of others. Thus 
Chancellor Snow, though physically slight, is 
nervously a giant. He is never ill, and never 
seems tired. His application to study for a quar- 
ter of a century has been remarkable, and noth- 
ing but genuine physical strength could ever 
have carried him through. 

His step is elastic, quick, and firm. His dark- 
blue eyes, clear and calm, never flutter and never 
dodge, always see everything in sight, and yet 
always show a fullness of merriment, gentleness, 
and love. His features are regular and strong. 
His upper lip means business, and his mouth, 
though kindly, is wholly resolute. There is not 
a weak or slovenly line in his countenance. His 
hand is quick and warm, and his handwriting, 
though it does not suggest John Hancock's reck- 
less extravagance of ink and space, is graceful, gen- 
erous and full of character. His voice is clear 
and fine, and peculiarly his own. His whole 
presence is cheerful. Sweetness and light are 
with him always. 

In the earliest pages of Ben-Hur are described 



13 

the three men who met in the desert. This de- 
scription of the Greek is a description of Chan- 
cellor Snow: "The last comer was unlike his 
friend; his frame was slighter; his complexion 
white; a mass of waving light hair was a per- 
fect crown for his small but beautiful head; the 
warmth of his dark-blue eyes certified a delicate 
mind, and a cordial, brave nature. . . . Fifty 
years had spent themselves upon him with no other 
effect apparently than to tinge his demeanor with 
gravity and temper his words with forethought. 
The physical organization and the brightness of 
soul were untouched. No need to tell the student 
from what kindred he was sprung; if he came not 
himself from the groves of Athene, his ancestors 
did." 

And what this Greek says of himself is surely 
what Francis Huntington Snow would say of 
himself had he to speak: "The most that I am 
sure of is, that I am doing a Master's will, and 
that the service is a constant ecstacy. When I 
think of the purpose I am sent to fulfill, there is 
in me joy so inexpressible that I know the will 
is God's.", 

Chancellor Snow stands for the highest type of 
Christianity. Nurtured from childhood in the 
orthodox church of New England and a student 
in her highest school of theology, he retains to- 
day the strength and beauty of that church, 
minus its localisms and personalities. The prin- 



14 

ciples of justice applied in Kansas courts to-day, 
under a simple code, are the same as those ap- 
plied a hundred years ago under the insuperable 
perplexities of the English practice. Thus the 
evolution of Chancellor Snow's mind has for him 
banished whence they came all technicalities and 
non-essentials, and brought into whitest light that 
which is unimpeachably true. Starr King says : 
" Blind conservatives never stop to make accurate 
classifications of their opponents. They make no 
account of the various moods and spirit in which 
dissent is made and the frequent affirmations that 
accompany denials." No such blind conservative 
is Chancellor Snow, for he remembers that "who- 
soever shall humble himself as this little child, 
the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven." 
He knows that righteousness exalteth a nation, 
and that nothing else does. He knows that 
nothing can take the place of an absolute accept- 
ance of the idea of God and a future life which 
the wise men of all ages have approved, and 
which guides and guards the soul through all 
dangers, keeps it pure and brings it finally to 
that peace which passeth all understanding. 

Intellectually, Chancellor Snow's position is 
well defined. A chip of the old New England 
block, he is also in line with that new Old Eng- 
land, which is to-day the intellectual monarch of 
the world. His place is among such men as 
Agassiz, Emerson, Thoreau, Huxley, Spencer, 



15 

Tynclal, and Damvin. His sdiolarship is genu- 
inely broad. An ardent student of the classic 
literatures, an equally ardent student in the realm 
of theology, he has done in science things for 
which the world knows him. Such a man with 
such a record cannot fail to have a vision as 
broad as the broadest Kansan could wish. 

His mind is in every way poised and self- 
mastered. Emerson says : " Health is the condi- 
tion of wisdom, and the sign is cheerfulness — an 
open and noble temper." And Emerson quotes 
in connection with this remark : 

"Oft have I heard, and deemed the witness true, 
Who man delights in, God delights in, too." 

He has also what Emerson says is a sure trait 
of true success : " The good mind chooses what 
is positive, what is advancing — embraces the af- 
firmative." Negative positions to Chancellor Snow 
are hateful. 

The quality of his mind is such that it never 
seems to be clogged or muddy. His great learn- 
ing has not left him inert or other than alert 
and quick. It has not spoiled his balance or his 
equanimity. He is never found in the paroxysms 
of intellectual gastralgia, or in that stuffed and 
undigesting condition which curdles the temper 
and warps the judgment. 

It is from this knowledge of Chancellor Snow's 
mind that his methods are foreseen. He has been 
called, with some degree of depreciation, "a spe- 



16 

cialist." He is ; but one specialty differetli from 
another in magnitude, and it seems to those wlio 
know Mm best tliat over and above Hs special- 
ties in science, literature or tlie arts should be 
set his specialty of doing well whatever he under- 
takes. His passion for attending to his own busi- 
ness is his master and renders him invincible. 
Now that the whole University is his business, it 
will be his specialty. He has burned the bridges 
behind him, and Snow Hall will not hereafter in 
any respect limit his affections. 

He will not be so demonstrative as the burn- 
ing and brilliant John Fraser, ex-Chancellor of 
blessed memory, but his enthusiasm will be none 
the less real; and he will follow the wholesome 
example of ex- Chancellor Marvin, whose vigilance 
in the stewardship of the State's money and 
property was once exemplified so perfectly in his 
stoppage of the work on a staircase within one 
tread of the top because the appropriation was 
exhausted. 

He will be able to say no without its being 
harsh, and also without its being sugar-coated so 
as to mean yes. Most executive heads of educa- 
tional institutions are so lax about this saying of 
no that they soon get the reputation of being 
liars. An educational corps is not organized on 
the military basis where nothing is assumed not 
specifically granted, but rather on an amicable 
basis where no man cultivates the methods or the 



17 

manners of a master. But none tlie less, educa- 
tional machinery lias to run and to that end de- 
cisions must be made, and they should be made 
as clearly as in military or railway work. Chan- 
cellor Snow will say no when he means no, and 
however kind he may be in all he does, he will 
never be called a dissembler, a fumbler, or a 
liar. 

This leads to the point that one of the chief 
characteristics of Chancellor Snow is his courage. 
His courage is not of the sort that requires to 
be labeled. He carries no flags and blows no 
trumpets affirmative of his courage, and the only 
way he does affirm it is by never showing con- 
sciousness of fear. He is never a prophet of evil. 
In all the hard years of our first quarter -century, 
years when hope was often scarcer even than cash, 
he was never heard to wail or whimper. When 
the State has been crippled and his own fortunes 
have crumbled about him, no man ever heard him 
speak discouragingly of the State or its institu- 
tions. As soon would a loving mother foretell 
evil of her children ! And, speaking of courage, 
he knows that jealousy is a sign "of weakness, 
self- distrust, and cowardice, and that it is irra- 
tional, even to insanity. 

He knows that honesty is the best policy — 
that fraud is always a treacherous servant whose 
aid means ruin. He knows that pretense breeds 
vermin to disintegrate and destroy. He mil tol- 



18 

erate no sliams. He knows that tlie people of 
Kansas must never be deceived as to their chief 
school. He knows that its exact status should 
be confessed and only its absolute position, 
achievements and merits be claimed. 

He has the characteristics of the true general, 
who does not fix his optics on the trifles about 
him while the main issues of the battle are being 
neglected. He knows that no general is worthy 
the name who does not perfect his plan logically, 
choose his subordinates wisely, trust them largely, 
watch them closely that they do not trespass on 
one another, demand results or resignations, and 
keep his battle-front strong at all points. He 
knows that a general has no time to be a police - 
jnan, or an amateur detective with a codak in 
one hand and a dark lantern in the other. He 
knows that a general, never being able to do all 
that might be done, must choose for his first 
attention the things of chief importance. 

He will have patience with the juvenile haste 
which demands perfection Avithout evolution, and 
with the idealist who grandly waives away the 
difiiculties of which time is one of the indispen- 
sable solvents. But he will not have patience 
with cases of intellectual lumbago — those people 
who squeeze their way into educational institu- 
tions that they may grow fat on inactivity and 
nod away their lives in the sunshine of collegiate 
respectability. 



19 

It is true that Cliancellor Snow, as Cliancellor, 
is an experiment. He lias the task before him 
of proving our opinion good. That he will do 
it we may have no fear; but we dare not on 
that account withhold every help that can be de- 
vised. The desire of his heart must be ours. 
As a unit we must push on towards the time 
when love of learning is truly dominant in Kan- 
sas, when our standing among the people of the 
earth will not depend on our bushels or our 
dollars, when we shall have filled our annals with 
those achievements of the mind which the world's 
record shows us have glorified the bleakest, rock- 
iest and most stingy acres under the sun. 



Inaugural Address, Responding to 
the Board of Regents. 



FRANCIS HUNTINGTON SNOW, Ph.D., LL.D. 



Before proceeding to the more formal presen- 
tation of an inaugural address, I desire to make 
a brief response to tlie generous words of the 
preceding speaker. The support which has 
been so heartily accorded in advance to the new 
management of University affairs, has made a 
profound impression upon my mind and heart, 
and has inspired me with an enthusiastic expec- 
tation that the future of this institution will 
justify that action of the Board of Regents which 
has rendered necessary the proceedings of this 
day. Sustained by a united Board of Regents, 
a harmonious Faculty, an enthusiastic body of 
students and alumni, a sympathetic public press, 
and above all by the good - will of the people of 
the great State of Kansas, whose institution we 
are, the new administration could hardly have 
entered upon its arduous duties under more fa- 
vorable auspices. That the present era of good 
feeling may be indefinitely prolonged, is a con- 

(21) 



22 

summation devoutly to be wislied. Differences 
of opinion will undoubtedly arise in shaping the 
policy of the institution, but no such differences 
can be allowed to interfere with the continuance 
of the enthusiasm for University education which 
must always find its highest manifestation when 
attention is directed to the State school upon 
Mount Oread. 

In what I have to say to-day, I shall lead 
you to a consideration of what the University of 
Kansas has been, now is, and is to be. Of the 
character of the first two of these forms of exist- 
ence, we may speak with some degree of cer- 
tainty, as our knowledge on these points is based 
upon actual occurrences ; of the third, or future 
form of existence, we may rest assured of the fact^ 
but must depend for its character upon our own 
ideal of what the Kansas University ought to be, 
and of the nearness of approach to that ideal 
which we may think the State of Kansas is likely 
to accomplish. In regard to the past character of 
the University, my personal connection with it 
since its establishment in 1866 will enable me to 
speak with the assurance of actual contact with 
the original sources of information. When Pro- 
fessors Robinson, Rice and myself met each other 
for the first time to plan for the opening of the 
institution, we found not a single genuine High 
School in existence in the entire State of Kansas. 
It therefore became necessary to begin the Uni- 



- 23 

versity as a Higli Scliool, — just what my distin- 
guished patriotic friend and adviser, Mr. Amos 
A. Lawrence, had told me it would be, before I 
left the State of Massachusetts. And we contin- 
ued to be a good High School for a number of 
years, so that the name sometimes bestowed upon 
us by our legislative opponents in those early 
days, and intended as an opprobrious epithet — 
" The Lawrence High School " — was in reality a 
true designation of our character, and not at all 
to our disparagement. But in seven years' time 
the four collegiate classes were all represented in 
our roster of students, and in 1873 we held 
our jfirst Commencement Exercises. In plans and 
aspirations, howeverj we were a University from 
the 1st of September, 1866. 

In founding a University on virgin educational 
soil, we discovered and improved some rare op- 
portunities for avoiding mistakes which had been 
woven into the very texture of the most eminent 
eastern colleges. We had it in our power so to 
determine the character of the student body and 
the scope of our curriculum that the institution 
should start into life with its entire system per- 
meated with the fresh air of the last half of the 
nineteenth century, while the New England col- 
leges were still struggling against a considerable 
amount of the asphyxiating atmosphere of the 
middle ages. At a time when even in the West 
co-education in institutions of collegiate rank was 



24 

considered to be a dangerous experiment, the 
Legislature of Kansas decided that in her Uni- 
versity the young women should have the same 
advantages as the young men; and the Univer- 
sity faculty have never introduced, nor even dis- 
cussed the introduction, of a modified curriculum 
for the so-called weaker sex. As convincing evi- 
dence that this experiment has become a pro- 
nounced success, and has not interfered with the 
natural employments of women, I will refer to 
Mr. Wilson Sterling's Alumni Catalogue, from 
which it appears that an astonishingly 
large proportion of our women graduates 
are engaged in domestic duties, and at the same 
time are making themselves known in the domain 
of literature, science, and the arts. The trustees 
of Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton, Will- 
iams, and many other high-grade Eastern colleges 
still regard the simple agitation of the subject of 
co-education as a bomb -shell of sufficient size and 
force to threaten the disruption of the educational 
body-politic. But this great question of woman's 
equal educational privileges was settled once for 
all a quarter of a century ago at the Kansas Uni- 
versity. 

Again, in framing the courses of study for the 
University of Kansas, the first faculty had an ir- 
resistible opportunity of putting modern science 
into natural relations with the ancient classics, 
the mathematics, and the wide expanse of his- 



25 

torical, literary, and philosopMcal studies. In the 
year of our beginnings, the best eastern colleges 
postponed the most elementary consideration of 
the physical and biological sciences to the Junior 
and Senior years, and then allowed an insignifi- 
cant amount of time for a very unsatisfactory 
presentation of these rudiments. The faculty of 
this University placed the most distinctively ob- 
servational of the sciences, as botany, zoology, 
physics and chemistry, partly in the Preparatory 
Department and partly in the Freshman and 
Sophomore years, in correspondence with that 
stage in the mental development when the per- 
ceptive faculty is naturally most active, and 
demands systematic exercise upon appropriate 
objects. In this way the natural trend of the 
individual mind was often clearly indicated with- 
out loss to the general culture of the student. 
In the Junior and Senior years opportunities 
were afforded for a more thorough training of 
the observational powers, with the result that 
even in the first half of our two dozen years of 
life, a very creditable proportion of enthusiastic 
and accurate scientific workers were launched 
upon successful careers as original investigators. 
In proof of this assertion, reference is again made 
to our Alumni Catalogue, which indicates that 
members of some of our earliest classes have 
achieved a national reputation, by the publica- 
tion of many valuable original contributions to bi- 



26 

ological and chemical science. During the second 
half of our incorporate existence, the number of 
scientific graduates already occupying enviable 
positions, by reason of the acquisition at the 
University of independent methods of research, is 
too large for specific mention. Whether scattered 
over the world, from Oregon to Southern Africa, 
or retained in the immediate personal service of 
their alma mater, their lives are a continual 
tribute to the excellence of their University 
training. 

The introduction of the laboratory method of 
instruction in natural science, which was hardly 
known in eastern institutions in connection with 
required courses of study, became a prominent 
feature with us even in our elementary courses; 
and it is a noteworthy fact that practically the 
same method of instruction has been extended to 
all departments of the University of Kansas. Stu- 
dents in historical and political science, in ancient 
and modern languages, in philosophy, music and 
art, are to-day feeling the impulse of the method 
adopted in the early years. They are cautioned 
by all our professors to beware of servile depend- 
ence upon any author or text-book, and are con- 
stantly encouraged to investigate the original 
sources of information, in the lecture-room, the 
library and the private study, as well as in the 
laboratory, the apparatus -room and the field. The 
success of our graduates in journalism, politics, 



27 

literature, pedagogics, and in more strictly profes- 
sional life, has been hardly less marked than in 
scientific lines. In these pursuits, also, they have 
shown the ability to attain conspicuous pre-emi- 
nence. The attempt to enumerate the notable 
examples of post-graduate success would result in 
the special mention of a very large number of the 
names upon our roll of Alumni. 

Summarizing my conception of what the Uni- 
versity has been, I should say that for the first 
six years of its history it was a High School, 
pure and simple, with some premonitions of an 
approaching collegiate character ; for the next 
twelve years it was a college as to its anterior 
portion, but with a very extensive High School 
posterior appendage. And as in the embryonic 
development of every individual animal of the 
highest morphological rank, this appendage is 
gradually abbreviated until externally, at least, 
it is entirely obliterated, so the Preparatory De- 
partment of this University • has been gradually 
diminishing from view during the last six years, 
until one more year will witness its complete ex- 
tinction. This long -looked -for result has been 
somewhat precipitated by formal act of the last 
session of the Legislature. What now remains 
of the Preparatory Department, although dignified 
by the term Sub - Freshman class, may be fairly 
considered as in the nature of a rudimentary 
organ, at the present time rather useless or in- 



28 

jiirious, than beneficial to the institution, but 
indicating a former lower stage of development 
in which it was absolutely essential to the exist- 
ence of the organism. In our first catalogue 
we announced that the Preparatory Department 
would be discontinued in a few years, and it 
might have tempted some members of the Fac- 
ulty to present their resignations if announce- 
ment had been made that a quarter of a century 
would elapse before its removal would become 
complete. 

We come next to consider the question of the 
present condition of the institution. It has been 
a High School, a College, and it is now in the 
transition stage from College to University, with 
some of the best points of the college, and some 
of the peculiar characteristics of a University. 
The college^ as I take it, is an institution in 
which a certain definite course of study, limited 
in range from limitation of endowment or equip- 
ment, leads to a certain definite degree, all stu- 
dents being required to pursue the line of study 
laid down in the curriculum with the minimum 
amount of deviation in the way of elective studies. 
The ideal University is an institution in which 
all branches of learning are thrown open to the 
student, who j)resumably has reached full maturity, 
and is therefore allowed to choose freely for him- 
self his course of study, without prescriptive ac- 
tion on the part of the University authorities. 



29 

The present condition of tliis institution there- 
fore cannot be that of an ideal University, since 
in the first place it is not within the possibility 
of our present equipment received from the State 
of Kansas to offer to Kansas youth the best in- 
struction in all branches of learning. But we 
need not feel ashamed of our limitation in this 
respect, since no University in existence, even 
among the famous institutions of Germany, has 
attained the perfect ideal of faultless instruction 
in all departments of knowledge. The student 
goes to Berlin for its supremacy in certain de- 
partments, to Leipzig, Heidelberg, Gottingen, for 
their pre-eminence in other departments. It is 
not within the bounds of possibility that the ab- 
solute ideal should be attained by any one insti- 
tution. But we can continually make advances 
toward the loftiest conceptions in the full con- 
viction that in Kansas, if any State in the Union, 
liberal pro\dsion will be made for the best pos- 
sible instruction of our young men and women. 

Nor, in the second place, are we an ideal Uni- 
versity, because the young people who graduate 
from the High Schools of the State have not 
reached that maturity M^hich would justify their 
being permitted to make an unrestricted choice 
of their studies during the entire four-years course 
which the institution requires for graduation. I 
do not say this to the disparagement of the young 
people of the High Schools of the State of Kan- 



30 

sas, for I am convinced that the High Schools of 
no State in the Union are able to furnish the 
maturity of mind in their graduates which would 
justify their immediate entrance upon a purely 
University system. A University whose attendance 
should be strictly limited to graduate students, 
corresponding with the theoretical, but not actual, 
organization of Johns Hopkins' University, would 
be able to make a very near approximation to 
this ideal; but the undergraduate students of the 
two lower classes of all our American colleges 
and universities are, in the great majority, of 
cases, both too young and immature to make it a 
safe ex]3eriment to fully entrust to them the se- 
lection of their studies. I would, however, allow 
to Freshmen and Sophomores the choice of the 
general course of training to be pursued, the 
range of their choice extending to no less than 
six prescribed two-year courses in this institution 
at the present time. At the beginning of the 
last two years of the University quadrennium suf - 
cient maturity of judgment has, by our own 
experience for the past five years, been demon- 
strated to be in the possession of the average 
undergraduate to justify the extension to him of 
a free choice of his studies for the Junior 
and Senior years. The fi'eedom of the choice, 
however, should be limited to such an extent 
as seems necessary to secure on the one hand 
a positive and practical concentration of effort 



31 

in some one favorite direction, and on tlie 
other iiand a breadth, of knowledge and cul- 
ture wliicli will rescue the student from the 
belittling influence of a narrow, intense spe- 
cialization. To indicate the range of possibilities 
in the choices of the two upper classes of this 
institution, it will suffice to state that no fewer 
than ninety-three courses of study, in seventeen 
different departments of investigation, are now 
offered to the Juniors and Seniors. 

The introduction of this system of regulated 
option als has proved to be a great success. On 
the one hand, our students, freed from the arbi- 
trary, iron-bound prescriptive system of former 
days, enter into their work with the satisfaction 
and enthusiasm which inevitably accompany the 
exercise of a choice involving personal responsi- 
bility. On the other hand, the members of the 
faculty, entering unconsciously into friendly com- 
petition for students to pursue their offered op- 
tionals, are stimulated to greater personal effort 
for the improvement of their qualifications for 
giving instruction. The most abstruse and tech- 
nical branches of literature and science are thus 
made to assume the greatest possible degree of 
attractiveness, and it is an extremely rare occur- 
rence for any one of the large number of offered 
courses to be destitute of students. It cannot, 
however, be considered a legitimate inference that 
the value of an optional course and the ability 



32 

of a professor to give instruction in his depart- 
ment are to be measured solely by tlie number 
of students to be found in these courses. The 
quality of the half-dozen students selecting a 
certain course will be a better recommendation 
of both course and professor, than the quantity, 
by the dozen, of students in some other course 
not requiring the same amount of labor from 
either student or professor. 

It has become a marked characteristic of our 
University, that the relations of students and 
faculty are to a large extent free from that re- 
straint which in many high-grade educational in- 
stitutions springs from the imposition upon the 
body of students of unyielding courses of study. 
It does not facilitate the growth of personal friend- 
ship between professor and student to allow no 
value to the student's personal likes and dislikes. 
When the student recites to a professor solely be- 
cause he is compelled to, there is sure to be a 
chasm of separation when the topic of study is 
distasteful to the student. But when a course of 
study is voluntarily selected by the student him- 
self, although the choice is regulated by certain 
rules, and when the student recites to a professor 
because the subject is attractive, the conditions 
are all favorable for intimate personal relation be- 
tween the parties to the contract. The informal 
conversational style of communication which pre- 
vails in our laboratories and libraries, as well as 



in the lecture-rooms, tlie seminaries, and the lit- 
erary and scientific clubs, is possible only among 
friends mutually absorbed in considering great 
themes. 

Summarizing my conception of what the Uni- 
versity now is, I repeat that it is in a state of 
transition from the College to the University. 

My conception of what it will become in the 
future is perhaps of more significance on the 
present occasion, as giving some indication of the 
probable policy of the incoming administration. 
While thoroughly believing in the uplifting in- 
fluence of a perfect ideal, and acknowledging to 
the fullest extent the imperative obligation which 
rests upon the University authorities to make the 
nearest possible approach to this perfect ideal, I can 
not overlook the fact that it would be suicidal to 
attempt the sudden transformation of the institu- 
tion, as it now is, into the faultless educational 
structure which it may become with a more 
favorable environment in the far-distant future, 
but which has no actual illustration either in 
Europe or America. The great European Uni- 
versities, and the best American Universities, are 
the product of a gradual development of educa- 
tional ideas through a long series of years. 
Harvard is Harvard, and Yale is Yale, and 
Princeton is Princeton to-day, because of the pe- 
culiarities of Massachusetts and Connecticut and 
New Jersey life which have entered into the fun- 



34 

damental structure of those institutions, making 
them to differ from each other as the political 
and ecclesiastical history of their respective States 
has continually differed. And so the University 
of Kansas must be a Kansas University. It can- 
not be a mere ideality, offering to Kansas youth a 
theoretical culture adapted to a state of society as 
pictured by Edward Bellamy for a far-away fu- 
ture time. It must be adapted to actual Kansas 
of the last decade of the 19th century, and not 
to actual Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New 
Jersey, or England, or Germany. By these state- 
ments I must not be interpreted as holding that 
the process of development of our Kansas Univer- 
sity will be as painfully sIoav as that of Harvard, 
which has required a quarter of a thousand years 
to reach its present condition. The development 
of the University of Kansas must keep rapid pace 
with the development of the State itself. The 
State of Kansas has accomplished as much, in each 
brief year of its existence as a State, as has been 
accomplished in ten years in the history of the 
most highly favored of the ISTew England States. 
There has been no more magnificent spectacle in 
American history than the almost magical rapid- 
ity with which Kansas has been transformed from 
the hunting-ground of the Indian and the pasture- 
land of the bison into a great agricultural em- 
pire, with population already greater than that of 
Massachusetts when Kansas was admitted to the 



35 

Union. Tlie University has kept even pace with 
the State in its remarkable progress, and must 
continue to advance as rapidly as will be consist- 
ent with the safe preservation of its precious gains 
and conducive to the most perfect harmony of its 
condition with that of its protecting parent. For- 
tunate in having been able to avoid the introduction 
into its organization and methods of administration 
of some elements of weakness which kindred in- 
stitutions of older States are still struggling to 
overcome, it is now in an efficient working con- 
dition, ready to improve every opportunity to 
make further advances tow^ard the unattained and 
ever unattainable ideal. 

If I am not mistaken, the most important step 
towards making this institution in reality, what it 
is in name, a genuine Kansas University, is the 
establishment of a closer and more vital connec- 
tion with the entire public-school system of the 
State. In the brief time which has elapsed since 
my personal attention was more especially called 
to this subject, I have discovered in my visits to 
High Schools that the University is hardly re- 
garded as sustaining a more intimate relation to 
these schools than any private denominational 
college in Kansas, or even than colleges in other 
States than Kansas. I have found principals of 
these schools in some cases not only failing to 
recognize the natural organic unity which by the 
very law of its incorporation binds the Univer- 



3B 

sity to tlie schools, but expressing unfeigned 
surprise when their attention is called to the 
fact. I have found other public school officials 
instead of directing the attention of their grad- 
uates to the State University as the most 
natural and desirable institution of learning 
wherein to obtain collegiate training, actually 
neglecting to mention this institution with 
favor, and directing their young men and wo- 
men to institutions in which the educational 
equipment is so manifestly inferior, that to 
spend four years within their walls involves not 
only a wasteful expenditure of time and money, 
but a serious crippling of the intellectual powers 
for which no subsequent regrets can make amends. 
Sending a boy to an inferior college when a su- 
perior one is within ready reach ^ is like dwarfing 
his physical nature by feeding him upon a starva- 
tion diet when an abundant supply of nutritious 
food is to be had for the asking. The remedy 
for this condition of ignorance and shortsighted- 
ness will consist in an organized effort on the 
part of the friends of our public -school system 
to secure the recognition of the fact that the 
University is as indissolubly connected with the 
public High Schools as is the High School with 
the grammar schools, or the grammar school with 
the primary grades. And this organized effort 
must continue until the passage of a student from 
the High School into the State University shall 



3-7 

be made witli the same facility with which he 
now passes from the lower grades into the High 
School. For the wide -spread ignorance in large 
portions of the State in regard to the character 
of the University, an ignorance most extreme 
among that large class of otherwise well-informed 
citizens who have never heard of the existence 
of such an institution, the University authorities 
themselves are, perhaps, largely to blame. It 
should be made known in every township in the 
State, by a free distribution of printer's ink and 
by visits from University officials, that the State 
of Kansas places within the reach of every child 
within her borders, without money and without 
price, a wide range of educational culture, clas- 
sical and scientific, theoretical and practical, 
either alone or all combined. Letters are almost 
daily received inquiring what charges are made 
by the University for her superior privileges. 
Let it be proclaimed so that every earnest 
young Kansan may clearly understand the fact, 
that the State ofPers here advanced educational 
advantages entirely without charge for entrance 
fees or tuition. Let it be universally under- 
stood that while other institutions impose upon 
each student an annual tuition fee of from 
fifty to two hundred dollars, our own great- 
hearted commonwealth bestows a free scholarship 
at her University upon every one of her sons and 
daughters who is prepared to make use of her 



3S 

generosity. Let it be everywhere made known 
that at the University of tlie State, every son 
and daughter of the State may receive the special 
training which makes chemists, naturalists, ento- 
mologists, electricians, engineers, lawyers, musi- 
cians, pharmacists and artists, or the broader and 
more symmetrical culture which prepares those 
who receive it for that general, well - rounded 
efficiency which makes the educated man a suc- 
cess in any line of intellectual activity, ten years 
earlier in life than the uneducated man. In 
short, a good deal of judicious advertising out- 
side of the customary distribution of the annual 
catalogue, will at the present juncture be of in- 
calculable advantage to the University of Kansas. 
And while this general distribution of funda- 
mental facts is being made, let the effort to more 
thoroughly harmonize the University with the 
High Schools be persistently carried forward. A 
very erroneous impression has in some quarters 
prevailed in regard to the attitude of the Univer- 
sity in reference to the accomplishment of this 
desirable result. It has been thought that this 
movement was a purely selfish one for the pur- 
pose of multiplying the number of "feeders" for 
the Freshman class. But this is far from being 
the case. The University was established by the 
State, and is now being generously supported by 
the State, in order that the largest possible num- 
ber of earnest-minded young Kansans may reap 



39 

tlie benefit of her generosity. And it is a most 
encouraging circumstance connected with the pres- 
ent discussion of this important question, that the 
discussion originated among the High-School men 
themselves, who invited the Faculty of the Uni- 
versity to hold a friendly conference with them on 
the 6th of April last. At this convention a strong 
conviction was expressed by the representatives of 
the High Schools that the University require- 
ments for admission to the Freshman class were 
so far in advance of the capacity of the average 
High School as to produce an impassable chasm, 
whereby large numbers of the brightest Kansas 
boys and girls were kept from entering the Uni- 
versity, and were thereby compelled to enter infe- 
rior colleges whose requirements were less rigorous. 
The sincerity of these High-School principals made 
a deep impression upon the University Faculty, 
and the problem of bridging the chasm of separa- 
tion without essentially lowering the standard of 
admission was referred to a committee of confer- 
ence. The final outcome of this friendly meeting 
was the recommendation of an additional High- 
School course preparatory to the Freshman class, 
in which only one of the two foreign languages 
required in the other courses was retained, the 
place of the second foreign language being sup- 
plied by the careful study of our own mother- 
tongue. Thus has arisen the so-called Latin- 
English preparatory course, which was more fully 



40 

elaborated at tlie City Superintendents' Conven- 
tion at Topeka, May 9tli, and put into shape for 
official recommendation to tlie High. Schools of 
Kansas. This recommendation, proceeding from 
the school officials and not from the University, 
has been heartily approved by our Faculty and 
Board of Regents, and will doubtless meet with a 
favorable reception on the part of the schools. 
It is a three-years course, in which Latin, English 
and Mathematics constitute the bulk of the work, 
with the addition of enough history, physical sci- 
ence, civil government and drawing to comply 
with the University demands. It is conceded by 
all that this course furnishes a good j^i'^ctical 
training for the majority of our High-School grad- 
uates who never go beyond the High-School cur- 
riculum. It therefore fully meets the objection 
that the High-School courses should not be ar- 
ranged solely to suit the demands of the minority 
who go on with their studies in the University 
or in some other institution. It is a good course, 
both for those who go and for those who do not 
go to the higher schools of learning, and will un- 
doubtedly be the means of bringing into connec- 
tion with the University many whose education 
would otherwise have ended with the High School. 
It is not intended as a substitute for the Latin 
and Greek, the Latin and Grerman and the French 
and German preparatory courses, but as an addi- 
tional course, which will prove attractive to many 



41 

wlio believe tliat the study of tlie English lan- 
guage can be made as profitable for mental train- 
ing and as valuable for information as the study 
of a foreign language. 

To connect with this new Preparatory course, 
the Faculty and Regents have established two 
new University courses for the Freshman and 
Sophomore years, one of which involves a con- 
tinuation of the Latin-English studies, while the 
other is termed a General Language course, and 
admits of the pursuit of any two of the three 
foreign languages — Greek, German, and French. 
Each of these new courses leads to the Junior 
and Senior optional system, and the student at 
graduation is awarded the degree of Bachelor of 
Arts. Each new course, having been made equal, 
in capacity to confer discipline and information, 
to the Classical and Modern Literature courses, 
is placed upon a full equality with them in the 
resulting degree, instead of being stigmatized as 
inferior by the concoction of some new combina- 
tion of honorary letters. Thus our beloved Uni- 
versity, while still retaining and holding in high 
estimation the old classical training in Latin and 
Greek, admits to a full and honorable equality 
the combination of Latin with the modern lan- 
guages, including our own complex and sturdy, 
not always euphonious, but always expressive, 
mother-tongue. 

Dr. Allen Starr, Chairman of the Committee 



42 

on tlie Princeton College curriculum, in a recent 
carefully prepared jDaper on tlie metliods now in 
use at his alma mater, gives liint of a possible 
future change in the requirements for admission 
to that college, by which the necessity for mak- 
ing up deficiencies in Greek may be avoided. 
What Princeton and other eastern colleges are 
strongly desiring, but hardly daring to suggest 
except in almost inaudible whispers, viz., the ad- 
mission of candidates for the degree of Bachelor 
of Arts without a knowledge of the Greek lan- 
guage, has for many years been an accomplished 
fact in the Modern Literature course of the Uni- 
versity of Kansas, and is now made also possible 
in our Latin English and General Language 
courses. It is in this way that a nearer approach 
is being made to the true University ideal, which 
regards mathematics, science, language, and the 
other humanities as necessarily represented in 
every properly organized curriculum for general 
culture, but leaves largely to the selection of the 
indi^ddual student the specific branches under 
each of these four divisions. 

If your attention has been held by the preced- 
ing recital of what has transpired in the past 
three months in the direction of harmonizing the 
University with the High Schools, you Avill have 
come to the conclusion . that much has already 
been accomplished toward placing the institution 
in its true position as the Kansas State LTniver- 



43 

sity. It will be tlie policy of my administration 
to adopt all reasonable measures to increase tlie 
strength of this bond of union between tlie head 
and the body of the public-school system. 

In the next place I shall look for a financial 
support from the State Legislature which will 
enable us to retain the strong men now included 
in the corps of instruction. These men should 
receive such salaries that the tempting offers of 
large compensation from eastern colleges will not 
deprive the youth of Kansas of the best talent 
available .for their instruction. So long as the 
Kansas University constitutes a promising recruit- 
ing ground for the Presidents of eastern colleges, 
it will be impossible for her to accomplish re- 
sults which come only by the persistent effort of 
able men to build up their several departments. 
It may be a matter of pride to us that our Uni- 
versity should have furnished professors to Cornell, 
to Williams, and to Harvard, but such pride can 
be indulged in only at the expense of the men- 
tal development of our own sons and daughters. 
The exercise of that business sagacity which 
would secure the retention of a professor at an 
increased salary, would be far preferable to un- 
profitable pride in connection with his departure. 
The self-respect of a professor should not be too 
heavily sacrificed to his patriotic desire to serve 
the State of Kansas. 

The strength of the University will depend on 



44 

the strengtli of the men who make up its faculty. 
Brains, and not bricks and mortar alone, give a 
University prestige and. renown. It is now time 
to turn the tables upon the eastern colleges by 
calling from them their best men for the educa- 
tional service of the Sunflower State. A good 
beginning has just been made by the election of 
a professor of Yale University to the chair of 
Geology and Paleontology. It may however be 
doubted if the appointment would have been 
accepted, at a pecuniary sacrifice, if the appointee 
had not been a Kansas man, whose great ambition 
has always been to develop the geologic wealth 
of his native State in the service of her Univer- 
sity. The State should take pride in honoring 
the services of such patriotic men by relieving 
them from the necessity of anxious thought for 
the pecuniary needs of the future. Relief from 
a burden of this character will increase the value 
of the services of any professor to a much greater 
proportional extent than the amount of the addi- 
tion made to his salary. 

But salary alone will not keep the right sort of 
men in a University faculty. There are other con- 
siderations more potent than pecuniary ones which 
influence an able professor to begin and continue 
his connection with an institution of learning. 
Of even more importance than salary is the 
equipment of the department which demands his 
services. No man with the right sort of ambi- 



45 

tioii will be satisfied to remain in a college whose 
managers decline to fnrnisli a generous provision 
in the line of apparatus, books, and properly 
constructed lecture-rooms and laboratories. Other 
things being equal, that University which can 
furnish the most efficient and abundant literary 
and scientific tools of instruction will secure and 
retain the most competent faculty. Libraries, 
museums, chemical, physical and philosophical ap- 
paratus are essential to the permanent retention 
of the best professors as well as for the attraction 
of the best students. 

Still another requisite for the enlistment and 
retention of the most valuable men in an educa- 
tional institution is the ojoportunity afforded them 
for original investigation in their favorite lines of 
research. The professor whose mental energy is 
exhausted by from three to six hours per day in 
the class-room or students' laboratory, will be 
unable in his own laboratory and library to pro- 
duce results which will make his University 
famous for the discovery of new truths in any 
branch of learning. In the model University 
which our own institution aspires some day to 
become, it will be considered incumbent upon the 
members of the faculty not only to teach the old 
truth, but also to discover new truth. And the 
professor who reveals the ability to add to the 
stock of human knowledge by his own investiga- 
tions, should be encouraged to make the most of 



46 

his ability by being released from a large portion 
of the class-room work whicli others, not possess- 
ing his genius, can even more successfully under- 
take. There are professors at Harvard, Johns 
Hopkins and Clark Universities who are entirely 
relieved from the work of instruction, because by 
their original investigations they are thought to 
confer greater distinction upon the institutions 
which command their services, and thereby attract 
more students within their walls, than if they were 
required to devote their chief energies to the work 
of instruction. But there is a golden mean, here 
as everywhere else, and it will be found that a 
fair amount of class instruction is a stimulus 
rather than a hindrance to original work. 

Recapitulating my conception of what the Uni- 
versity of Kansas is to be in the future, I insist 
upon these points as essential. In the first place, 
it is to be a thoroughly Kansas institution. It is 
to be an indissolubly integral part of the public - 
school system, in complete harmony with it and 
worthily crowning it. In the second place, it 
is to hold its pre-eminent position in the State 
of Kansas and among the great educational insti- 
tutions of the United States by calling and 
keeping in its service, against all competition, a 
strong body of professors with an unquenchable 
enthusiasm of learning. The State is to retain 
these intellectual and moral guides of her sons 
and daughters by furnishing them with adequate 



47 

pecuniary remuneration, and by giving them such 
apparatus for instruction and such opportunities 
for discovering truth as to satisfy their most 
earnest cravings for intellectual growth. With 
such a faculty, and such a connection with the 
lower public schools as I have described, the Uni- 
versity of Kansas will suffer no lack of noble- 
minded students from every county in the State. 
There will be no occasion for any citizen to send 
his sons and daughters to distant States and climes 
to seek that educational equipment which can 
be obtained with greater facility within the walls 
of this University. For the accomplishment of 
this great result, the generous financial support 
of the State of Kansas must be freely extended, 
not in advance of her actual ability, but in fair 
proportion to her increasing pecuniary capacity. 
Appropriations for the feeble-minded, the unsound- 
minded, the physically deficient, the pauper and 
the criminal, should not be reduced in amount; 
but it should be distinctly remembered that sound- 
minded, able-bodied boys and girls are entitled 
to an opportunity for securing the be st possible 
preparation for life, in the University of a State 
which never does anything by halves, and has 
ever shown a disposition to manifest especial lib- 
erality where the educational needs of her children 
are concerned. 

I look forward with confidence to a period in 
the lifetime of many within the hearing of my 



4-8 

voice to-day, when by public generosity aided by 
private munificence Mt. Oread shall be covered 
with educational structures, faultlessly planned, 
devoted to the various departments of science 
and the humanities, thronged with thousands of 
students from this and other States intent upon 
the greatest possible development of the immortal 
mind and soul. For the hastening onward of 
this educational millennium let every loyal Kan- 
san bend his strongest energies until no township 
in this great commonwealth shall be so remote as 
to fail to receive some degree of inspiration to 
right thinking and right living from the far- 
reaching and ever -elevating influence of the Uni- 
versity of Kansas. 



Relations between the University 
and Material Progress. 



COL. JOHN J. McCOOK, A.M., LL, D. 



More than merely formal ttanks are due to you 
for having invited me to come from the East and 
address the authorities, students and friends of this 
great Western seat of learning. There we are so 
so overwhelmed by the marvelous material prog- 
ress of the country beyond the Mississippi, that 
we are sometimes inclined to forget the simulta- 
neous growth of the Western universities, which 
are working silently, but powerfully, and without 
which all material progress is barren and unen dur- 
ing. 

Among all human institutions, universities are 
the most lasting. They survive changes of gov- 
ernment, the strifes of factions, the revolutions of 
religion. They seem almost to contradict the 
statement of Hume, that we cannot expect that 
stability in the works of man which the Almighty 
has denied to His own creations. It is, however, 
the rapid development of higher education in con- 
nection with the great advance of practical inter- 

(49) 



50 

ests in the United States, Trhicli Las led me to 
suggest to you to-day a few tliouglits on tlie sub- 
ject of the relation existing between the university 
and matei'ial progress. 

It has been observed by the English historian, 
Mr. Lecky, that where great political activity 
prevails, men are but little disposed to make 
theories, but that in more tranquil periods men 
turn to reilection. There is a plausibility about 
this view which disappears when one looks at 
history. 

If we take, for example, the condition of an- 
cient Greece, we find that the time of its greatest 
political activity was also the time of its greatest 
intellectual advancement. The age of Pericles, 
the Augustan age of the Greeks, was that which 
witnessed the career of Socrates, the rise of the 
Academy and of the Lyceum, the establishment 
of the schools of Sophists, and the development 
of a critical historical spirit. 

The time of the Caesars, when what was rela- 
tively the greatest object of Rome's ambition, 
the conquest of the world, was sought, was also 
the time when Latin literature reached its high- 
est point of excellence, and was preparing the 
inspiration of European literature throughout 
many centuries. 

Even the middle ages, beginning ^Aith the reign 
of Charlemagne, were marked by striking contem- 
poraneous movements of acti^dty and thought. 



51 . 

With tlie eastward advance of European armies 
toward the Holy Sepulchre, was contemporary the 
westward march of oriental philosophy for the 
conquest of catholic thought. Side by side with 
feudal castles, the centers of all that was most 
conspicuous in the world of action, rose the mo- 
nastic schools with their speculations and doctrines 
of metaphysical theology. The struggle of indi- 
vidual European States to emerge from Feudalism 
and to make Monarchy supreme finds its counter- 
part in the strife of scholastic theologians and 
the union- of all under the sway of Rome. 

That great series of events which we call the 
Reformation, yvas indeed an age of practice, but 
of theory as well. The discovery of America, the 
voyages of Columbus and Cortes, the unsurpassed 
results achieved by Co23ernicus and Galileo, cannot 
be dissociated from the new theological- revolu- 
tion, the Renaissance, and the rise of modern 
philosophy. 

Coming to our o\\ti century, where so much 
political activity has prevailed and material prog- 
ress has been made, we find an immense advance 
in scientific life, the proposition of new and far- 
reaching systems of philosophy, and the multipli- 
cation to an unprecedented extent of educational 
and literary institutions. 

If history teaches anything, it teaches that the 
closest relationship exists between the seething 
world of action and the calmer world of thouo-ht 



52 

and theory. In whatever direction we look, we 
see that the two advance together. Germany 
shows it in the immense scientific development at 
a time when she was fighting to secure her Im- 
perial Constitution and her independence of action 
as the leading state of Europe. Italy shows it 
by the second Renaissance, which began at the 
overthrow of the temporal power of the Papacy 
and has continued during the critical youth of 
her newly- established kingdom. England, and 
even republican France, have shown it by their 
contributions to thought and letters during the 
troubled times of internal conflicts. 

It must be freely admitted that there is an 
important difference between the university ideals 
of Europe and America, particularly between 
that of Germany and America. The construction 
of the German State is such that the University 
course is a necessary preparation for many 
branches of public life, is indeed a process by 
which an intellectual bureaucracy is created. 
This is not so much the case in America. While 
it is true that the Law is often called the step- 
ping-stone to public preferment, it is a fact that 
many of our most eminent and useful statesmen 
have not had a legal training. Even the require- 
ments of the Civil Service do not involve a col- 
legiate education, and conversely the collegiate 
courses are not expressly arranged for those who 
propose to enter official life. The Govermnent 



58 

interferes only indirectly in tlie liigher education 
of its citizens ; and in a democracy, as a rule, 
tte people are not willing to be taxed for insti- 
tutions wliicli do not meet the general demands 
of the many. 

In the Greek democracy powerful schools for 
instruction in Rhetoric, Logic, Philosophy and 
Politics arose for the enlightenment of those who 
wished to enter public life; but these were for 
the few rather than for the multitude, and re- 
ceived no support from the State. It is the same 
in our own Republic. 

In Europe most of the universities have a po- 
litical significance — -as in Russia, where they are 
jealously watched as centers of sedition or revo- 
lution; as in Germany, where they are more or 
less controlled by the Imperial Government; as 
in England, even, where they are represented in 
Parliament. 

In this country universities are created to sup- 
ply the demand for higher education. They de- 
pend, in but few instances, on ancient and 
conditional endowments; they are in most cases 
independent of State control. In Europe the 
curriculum is not merely for the purpose of sup- 
plying a demand, but is independent of such a 
demand. The emptiness of an auditorium or lab- 
oratory does not displace the professor nor cause 
the disappearance of his specialty. Investigation 



54 

and discovery are and sliould be ranked with 
education and instruction. 

So great is the thirst for knowledge, that there 
is a pursuit, not merely of sciences which bring 
bi'ead and butter to their devotees, but there is 
a multitude of men. willing to forego the luxuries 
of this life for the sake of Greek syntax, of the 
higher mathematics, of archaeology and philoso- 
phy. For them there is often no material re- 
ward, for the number of specialists in science and 
letters is far greater than that of university 
chairs. 

The work of the University in Europe, as well 
as here, is supplemented by schools which pre- 
pare men for commercial and industrial pursuits. 
In such a country as this of ours there is a large 
place for institutions like the latter, and there 
are many who would encourage only commercial 
and poly technical education. Such a practical 
tendency indicates a failure to see the true origin 
and source of such technical subjects. That they 
should either form part of a university course, or 
be closely related to it, may be fi'eely admitted, 
but the fons et prinoipium of all true practice 
lies in intelligent theory. For Art is dependent 
on Science. Doing is dependent on Thinking. 

Mechanical Art, when it passes beyond the 
simple handiwork of the laborer to the great con- 
structions of the engineer, finds its support in the 



55 

science of meclianics, and this is in turn founded 
on mathematics. 

The Art of Medicine is dependent not only on 
the Sciences of Anatomy and Physiology, but 
also on that of Chemistry, and needs for its in- 
vestigation as well as its furtherance the help of 
languages both living and dead. 

The Art of Finance in minor trades and smaller 
commercial transactions may require only common 
sense and a knowledge of arithmetic; but beyond, 
the greater movements, involving the relations be- 
tween Capital and Labor, between the Govern- 
ment and the People, are the laws of Social and 
Political Economy. A man may have knowledge 
of these and be unsuccessful in affairs, just as a 
great physician may be an indifferent chemist, or 
a great preacher a man ignorant of abstruse the- 
ological questions. But the theory is related to 
the practice as the source or the unimportant rill 
which flows from it is to the mighty river that 
fructifies a continent and bears the peaceful arma- 
das of commerce to the sea. 

But technical education is not the only education 
that is needed by the man of technical pursuits. 
The complaint is often made that the theorist is 
not well fitted for practical action. His knowl- 
edge is a knowledge of the mere student or re- 
cluse, a knowledge of the laboratory or of the 
library, rather than the broader knowledge re- 
quired to make practice useful and effective. In 



56 

like manner it may be objected that the technical 
specialist is too little of a theorist. Without ex- 
aggeration it may be said that an exclusively tech- 
nical education has a constraining and limiting 
effect on the mind. Art and practical action may 
be followed so specially as to shut the eyes of 
practical men to the greatest objects which are to 
be gained by a more general and liberal education. 
Late in life the man of practical affairs, who 
has achieved great material results and perhaps 
has accumulated great wealth, begins to look Avith 
longing eyes toward that vast treasure-house of 
thought and letters from which he is shut out by 
the limitations of his earlier training. Before this 
time it had seemed to him only a dreary temple, 
to be entered by those whose life was removed 
fi^om practical affairs. Its riches were, as he 
thought, of no use in carrying out great practical 
enterprises and mnning wealth, and applause, and 
fame. But after these are achieved by any man, 
there often comes over him, however ignorant he 
may be, at least a curiosity, and very often a sad 
and hopeless longing to be a dweller in that cul- 
tivated country where results are not to be meas- 
ured by the senses nor to be recorded in the 
ledger. It must be said, that men who later in 
life have these feelings have been among the 
noblest friends that American universities have 
known. Go where you will to the richly- endowed 
institutions in which young men are gaining this 



57 

higher education, and everywhere you ^^'ill ))e able 
to trace, by the generous gifts of those who have 
taken no degree in Art and Science, the indica- 
tion of that deep regret which has led the givers 
to furnish for others that which they have lacked 
themselves. 

I take it that one of the noblest characteristics 
of our people is that desire which so many feel, 
and often so earnestly express, that their children 
may learn to know that fertile and radiant land 
of which the parents catch but a passing glimpse. 
For them the wheel of practical life, with its loud 
distracting revolutions, cannot altogether hush the 
voice which speaks to them from a remote antiq- 
uity, from period after period of classical history 
and classical song. The hopes of a great material 
future in which the forces of nature are to be 
held by a Promethean hand, cannot make them 
forget altogether the highway of the past along 
which the scholar lingers in an atmosphere of 
philosophy and poetry and art. And almost in- 
stinctively they know that the newer vintages 
which practical science and contemporary litera- 
ture set before them, have not the classic purity 
and sweetness of those less exciting but nobler 
products of an earlier day. Hence the almost 
pathetic eagerness of men who spend the twilight 
hours of useful lives in hoarding upon book 
shelves or in art galleries that which their earlier 
education has not enabled them to enjoy, but the 



58 

value of wliicli tlieir declining years have forced 
them to appreciate. 

Even if mere utility be regarded as the stand- 
ard by which the value of higher education is to 
be measured, it will be found that the university 
courses in the classics, and what in Scotland are 
called the humanities, are of great importance in 
many walks of practical life. Theologians must 
be trained, and besides a knowledge of Hebrew, 
Greek and Latin, they require a literary educa- 
tion, or are the better for a literary education. 
It is doubtful whether in auy other profession 
there is so great an opportunity of using knowl- 
edge of history, of poetry, of psychology, logic 
and ethics. Almost every branch of learning can 
be employed to illustrate their preaching and 
teaching. And what is true of the clergy is true 
also of othei" classes in the community to a 
greater or less extent. Thei'e are medical men 
and scientific men, there are lawyers and engi- 
neers, whose knowledge would be of far greater 
use to the world had they enjoyed the cultivat- 
ing influence of a general, as well as of a special 
training. 

I will not enter into a consideration of the 
vexed question as to how far classical training 
is a waste of time to j.^rofessional men, but I 
would suggest that those who would minimize 
its importance seem to me to take a superficial 
view of the intellectual world in which we . live. 



59 ' 

Shining examples may be brought forward of 
men, who, in their thought and in the expres- 
sion of their thought are unsurpassed, although 
they have no direct knowledge of the ancient 
languages. But it must be remembered that 
from their educational surroundings we cannot 
eliminate that classical influence which permeates 
modern literature, without which modern litera- 
ture would not be what it is. It is by the clas- 
sical standard that we judge the style even of 
those who never have read a line of Plato or 
Demosthenes, to whom Cicero and Quintilian are 
known only by name. 

Beside all this, one who has once joined that 
company which is led by the Muses of the 
Classic age can never feel himself to be alone. 
However arduous his life, however rude his sur- 
roundings, however far he may be removed from 
society which is cultivated and civilized, he can 
join in the exalted strain of the Roman poet, 
changing only what is geographical and retain- 
ing all the inspiration of that ancient lyric apos- 
trophe : 

"Vester, Camense, vester in arduous 
Tollor Sabinos, seu mihi frigidum 
Prseneste seu Tibur supinum 
Seu liquidse placuere Baise. 
Utcunque mecum vos eritis, libens 
Insanientem navita Bosporum 
Tentabo et urentes arenas 
Littoris Assyrii viator; 
Visam Britannos hospitibus feros 



60 

Et Isefcum equino sanguine Concanum, 

Visam pharetratros Gelonos 

Et Scythicum inviolatus amnem. 

Vos Caesarem altum, militia simul 

Fessas cohortes addidit oppidis, 

Finire quserentem labores 

Pierio recreatis antro. 

Vos lene consilium et datis et dato 

Gaudetis almse." 

The pursuit of the historical method at our 
uuiversities seems to me to be of the hig-hest im- 
portance, not only to professional men in general, 
but to practical professional men ; not only to 
practical professional men, but to non -professional 
men, No one who has watched the development 
of science in the j^i'esent century can fail to have 
noticed the important part played by historical 
study in this great advancement. The theory of 
evolution, for example, is founded on the natural 
history of the universe, and when presented it 
forms, as it were, the biography of Nature. If 
one would avoid error and useless effort, one 
must use assiduously the historical method. We 
should find great fault to-day with an inventor 
who might claim to have just planned the tele- 
graph or telephone, and should tell him that 
every child knows about these inventions, and 
that we had known of them for years. It is al- 
most as strange to find many professing to have 
constructed theories which they suppose to be 
new and which in reality have long been ex- 
ploded, or setting forth as new that which is old 



61 

and long since known by those wlio have studied 
the past. 

The present can be truly understood only by 
those who understand the past, and in this sense 
all the sciences, both theoretical and practical, are 
historical sciences. Indeed, many of the most prac- 
tical truths cannot be learned on the exchange, in 
the factory, in the courts of law, in laboratories, 
in hospitals, or in the busy life around us, but 
must be learned from the failures and successes 
of the race in its past struggles. To appreciate 
this is the. best preventive of a dangerous radical- 
ism on the one hand, and of a timid conservatism 
on the other. 

I cannot refrain from noticing one point of re- 
lationship between the university and practical 
life, with which you are all familiar, but which 
seems to me worthy of especial consideration. I 
refer to that existing between our higher institu- 
tions of learning and the physical interests of the 
American people. In a country where the .ma- 
terial resources have to be developed, and rapidly 
developed, to meet the wants of a vast population 
which is growing every day, the whole man, body 
and soul, must go at a fast pace, which is a con- 
stant menace to the robustness of the nervous sys- 
tem and to the health of the community. You 
are familiar with this phase of life here. In the 
East we watch the vast procession of immigrants 
which is sweeping westward, and we know how 



62 

the great Americanizing mill of this part of the 
country must work to adapt them to the condi- 
tions of oui' ci\dlization. 

It is an office of the University to teach men 
that there is need of reflection as well as ener- 
getic action, and so to keep mthin safe limits the 
exuberant growth and expansion of Society. But, 
besides this, one of the characteristics of the Amer- 
ican, as of the English, University, is what I may 
describe as Dorian — a care of man's body as well 
as the development of his mind. By the gener- 
ous rivalry of the various schools and colleges in 
gymnastic and athletic sports, the physical as well 
as the mental part of the student receives great 
benefit; and so far from being "sicklied o'er with 
the pale cast of thought," men find it quite easy 
to acquire a high degree of scholarship without 
finding in the end that their nerves are ruined 
and their lungs contracted. Statistics inform us, 
as common -sense might do, that the qualities which 
favor healthy life, which put a crew at the head 
of a river or win games of foot-ball or base-ball, 
are not entirely divorced from those which win 
by application and steady perseverance the more 
enduring laurels of academic fame. 

In this respect I venture to say, university 
authorities have something to learn fi'om the 
undergraduates — the inspiration of healthy com- 
petition — competition in the field of scholarship 
such as those instructed by them dis23lay in the 



63 

athletic world. It would be a great stimulus to 
university life were the rivalry greater iu this 
respect. Believe me, gentlemen, the place of an 
university intellectually is not to be determined 
by the number of professors in its faculty, nor 
the number of students on its rolls. There are, 
it is true, some of our Eastern institutions of 
learning which belie .their name, and have in- 
creased the number of their undergraduates by 
lessening the value of their degree. Let us see 
to it that ^ve encourage men in every possible 
way to enter our colleges, but having entered 
them let us not be satisfied — as is the case in the 
far East — with calling a man Bachelor of Arts 
whose university course has fitted him to be little 
more than an accomplished dancing -master or a 
third-rate actor. It is true that we may measure 
the greatness of an imperial University like Ber- 
lin by numbers as well as scholarship, but a 
truer idea of the meaning of a high standard is 
gained by comparing Baliol with other far larger 
colleges in the University of Oxford. Superiority 
in scholarship is not altogether dependent on the 
personnel of the faculty, (although here at Law- 
rence you may see what a power that is,) l:)ut is 
the result of the maintenance of a hio-h standard 
and a thorough earnestness on the part of both 
professors and students to win a victory iu com- 
petition with sister institutions. It is the result 



64 

of an enthusiasm in tlie cause of learning for 
learning's sake. 

You mil freely admit that we, all of us, East 
and West, have had much to learn fi'oni Europe 
in the formation and development of our intel- 
lectual life. The time is at hand when in many 
respects the positions of teacher and learner must 
he reversed, and the eyes of the Eastern seers 
mil be fixed occasionally on the star of empire 
in its westward course. Here in the West, with- 
out the fetters of tradition, you have had and 
have the opportunity of making new experiments 
and substantial advances in educational methods. 
It is true that this is a dangerous responsibility, 
but it is for you to feel the responsibility and 
rest assured that as each advance is crowned 
"with success, there are in the oldel* countries and 
States receptive minds which are ready to follow 
you. 

It is an often-repeated boast that as civiliza- 
tion in America advances, the school -house is 
one of the first buildings to appear in a new 
community. One may truly add that where ma- 
terial development is most conspicuous, there 
university life is ultimately vigorous. We find a 
proof of this in Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
for example, where institutions of learning flour- 
ish within the sound of mills and factories ; in 
Ohio, where the agriculture and industry seem 
to be symbolic of growth and work in the 



65 

world of intellect ; in California, wliicli looks 
over tlie Western sea towards the home of sci- 
ence and civilization ; and especially here in 
Kansas, the very center of this country, con- 
nected by arterial systems of railroads with 
every part of the great beating heart of the 
American continent, where you are so actively 
engaged in those pursuits which make a nation 
not only rich and strong, but also wise and 
good. 

It is thus the chief function of the University 
to know and to teach the truth. The history of 
intellectual progress is the history of an attempt 
to answer the question of the vaccillating Judean 
governor, "What is Truth? The University must 
say to those who come to it for light, paraphras- 
ing the old saying, '■'•Nihil veri alienum putavi.'''' 
And, if this be so, it is impossible for any one 
to raise the question of utility with reference to 
the University course. Again, a high authority 
tells us, "The truth shall make you free." Truth 
is the way to liberty. The inspired epigram 
shows the , logical order of surveying these two 
priceless benefits. Kousseau tells us that "Man 
is born free, but everywhere he is in chains, and 
that he covers with flowers and calls it freedom." 
But we know very well that the only true free- 
dom is the effect of enlightenment. "The truth 
shall make you free" had primarily a religious 
meaning ; but in this saying we recognize the ex- 



66 

pression of an universal verity. It is indeed 
religious trutli whicli shall make us free — free 
from sin, free from tlie baser passions and the 
lower instincts ; free fi'om the punishment that 
is sure to follow the violation of the moral law. 
But the Truth gives us Freedom in a Avider 
sense. History records many noble and passion- 
ate efforts for the attainment of human freedom. 
It records no instance in which Ignorance has 
emancipated men from any kind of thralldom. 
The yoke of ancient Egypt was endured by the 
enslaved Israelite in spite of the taskmaster's w^hip 
and the oppressive laws of the Pharaohs. The 
leadership of Moses was crowned with success be- 
cause he was the revealer of Truth, learned dur- 
ing his earlier years in the court of the tyrant, 
learned in many a vigil during his pastoral life 
in Horeb. The fi^eedom of Attica was no mere 
accident. Attic wisdom and Attic liberty cannot 
be thought of apart from one another. When 
the Keformation in modern Europe began, the 
Truth, which had long languished in the midst of 
superstitions, oppressions, priestcraft, unworthy tra- 
ditions, was crowned again. Chains were broken, 
ungenerous laws were repealed. Society was to 
know that the Kingdom of God was not a despot- 
ism, that it was a kingdom of intelligence. It was 
not a revolution led by a rebellious monk — ^it was 
the culmination in action of a revival of Truth. 
It is no mere accident that the reformed churches 



67 

have so often been on tlie side of religious freedom. 
Dark spots tliere are on tlie fame of some reform- 
ers in those intolerant times. But if you would 
see an illustration of the emancipating power of 
the Truth, you need only look at the fiery conflict 
of Huguenot, Covenanter, and Puritan, in which 
the flowers of Ritual, Sensuality, worldly pros- 
perity, ecclesiastical pride, were stripped from the 
chains in which Europe had for so long been lan- 
guishing. There could be no more cogent proof 
of this particular power of truth than the fact 
that the liberty of Europe was only a possibility 
after Science, substantial religion, Literature and 
knowledge of the spirituality of real religion had 
been born again. Liberty is not a thing to be 
achieved by the blind agitation of ignorant men. 
It is the child of truth, and "Truth is the daughter 
of Time." Freedom has indeed a bastard sister 
which respects neither property, the family, nor Re- 
ligion. Against this perverted creation of our time 
we have to be on our guard. There may be many 
respects in which we do not enjoy our proper meas- 
ure of liberty, but our safeguard against such dan- 
gers is the education of our citizens. The leaders 
of the French Revolution had a faint appreciation 
of this when they defied Reason in their efforts to 
attain to liberty, equality, and fraternity. But 
mth their eyes open to one side of the truth, they 
were in most cases blind to the verities of mor- 
ality and religion. To that sightless eye, raised 



68 

to a Godless heaven, there appears no vision of 
true Liberty. Around us everywhere we may 
read the same lesson. Blind rage at political 
abuses, the bitter bread of poverty, the weariness 
of unprofitable labor, the vicious examples of those 
who use their wealth for the gratification of lust 
and ambition — these are the motive power of so- 
cialism, communism, and anarchy. But these the- 
ories are only attempts to tear the chains from the 
limbs of some, to fasten them on the limbs of 
others. All of these blind stri^dngs of the poor, 
the discontented, the oppressed, the unfortunate of 
every kind, even the guilty for release from the 
thralldom which they endure, are voices appealing 
to our universities. They are not to be suppressed 
by sneers, nor to be drowned with the shedding 
of blood. The darkness which seems sometimes 
to threaten our social conditions can be relieved 
in only this way. Men have endured martyrdom 
for far worse causes than the natural, nay, the 
divine impulse to rise from degradation, poverty 
and slavery. Upon all such darkness the light 
of Truth must shine. Truth is the only beacon 
which can save distressed society from shipwreck. 
All impulses, however noble or natural, or divine 
or powerful they may be, must be guided by 
Truth if they are to be made effective, happy 
and enduring in their results. The gallows may 
be planted in the camp of the enemy to society, 
gold may be given to the leaders of discontent. 



69 

and many loud voices will be silenced ; but, nie- 
tliinks, after all tHs prevention I still hear that 
portentous undertone whicli may one day burst 
into a roar like the sound of many waters. It 
seems to many to be only a cry of discontent ; 
but be who is a wise interpreter will recognize 
in these disaffected mutterings and in these tur- 
bulent cries an unconscious appeal for the Truth 
which shall make these people free. In its radi- 
ant light our society need not find Plato's de- 
scription of the multitude a reflection of reality. 
Like cattle with their faces turned, they feed 
and breed and butt and kick at one another 
with horns and hoofs which are made of iron, 
for they are filled with that which is unsubstan- 
tial. Rather will they be like those described 
by the same philosopher who no longer linger 
in the shades of the cave of ignorance with bod- 
ies chained and with eyes fixed on the images 
cast by passing objects on the dreary walls, but 
will emerge into the light of day, for the Truth 
shall make them free. 

We are told on high authority that "Man shall 
not live by bread alone, but by every word that 
proceedeth out of the mouth of God" — a saying 
which indicates the necessity of something higher 
and greater than material prosperity. This truth 
has a secular as well as a religious application, 
and suggests our proper attitude in the midst of 



70 

tlie bemldering rapidity witli wliicli America 
is accomplishing in a short space of time what 
other nations liave patiently awaited for ages. 
"Man shall not live by bread alone," but by 
learning that the mind is to be fed as well as 
the body. "Man shall not live by bread alone," 
but by reading on dark or splendid pages of 
history the failures and triumphs of nations in 
the past; by penetrating through otlier languages 
than his own the habit of thought, the liter- 
ature, and the character of other times and 
other lands; by studying in the mathematical 
sciences the relations of that Infinite Space 
in which Matter is knoAvn, or of that Infinite 
Time, on which our idea of number depends. 
"Man shall not live by bread alone," but by 
reading upon the starry face of night the secrets 
of other worlds by looking back through age 
upon age toward the origin of this universe, and 
forward to tke mystery of its destiny. There will 
always be minds starving for this kind of food, 
and they must be fed. With all its many pur- 
poses, the University of Kansas may claim this 
proud object as its highest and best. It is this 
to which its energies are directed, and on which 
its hopeful eyes are fixed. If anything were 
needed to prove the truth of what I have been 
endeavoring to suggest and to express, and to 
show that it has been the inspiration of others. 



71 

I would only point to this great institution, wliich. 
now combines tlie liealtli and promise of youth 
with the vigor and activity of manhood. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



nil II 



029 911 935 ft 



